The Bakery Attack
by Diviana Foresman
Summary: Duo kidnaps Unn during the war and they get a bit hungry seeing as there's no food in the safehouse...


The Bakery Attack

Diviana Foresman

July 28, 2003; revised September 2004

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I'm not quite sure why I brought up the bakery attack to Unn. I hadn't been planning on telling her, but it wasn't a now-that-you-mention-it thing either. I just ended up bringing it up. And I guess it was a good thing I did, otherwise, I wouldn't have such fond memories of the Psycho Witch from Hell.

It happened like this.

Heero had kidnapped Unn a week before. He and Wufei and I had decided to take turns watching her. I had her for three days, and on the second day, we both woke at four in the morning. Dunno why, we just did. I rolled over, accidentally laying ontop of her arm since we were handcuffed together.

"You hungry again, Maxwell?" she murmured, tugging her arm back.

"Yeah..." I said, suddenly realizing I was dying of starvation. Not really, but, damn, that's what it felt like. And believe me, I've felt that way before. "You?"

Unn flipped on the lamp. "Strangely enough, yes..."

I grinned and pulled her into the kitchen with me to search for something edible.

You're probably telling yourself that Unn is totally out of character right now, and I admit, I was surprised too when I first saw this side of her, but she really is like that. Even during the war, which is when this whole thing happened. Even though we were enemies, we were really close friends though she still acted like she had a stick shoved up her ass, but hey, that's how most of them Ozzies acted anyways.

So anyway, in the fridge we found a six-pack case of cream soda, four Hershey Kisses, a radish and a bowl of molding black pancakes. There was also a broken heel of bread and half a box of corn starch. Nothing that we could really eat.

I undid Unn's handcuff and as she went around looking for things that were somewhat edible, I undid mine and set the cuffs in a drawer. "Could we go out to a restaurant?"

"Too public. You're suppose to be a hostage, babe," I told her. "Can't let nobody but me see ya, 'specially since it's three in the morning."

"It's ten after four, Maxwell."

"Whatever. Find anything, Unn-babe?"

"Pita bread." She tossed the half-circle on the table before sitting next to me and popping open a can of soda.

"Damn. Guess we're gonna have to bug 'Fei tomorrow for food..." We both drained a can and reached for another. Cream soda so doesn't fill you up...

"I don't know about you, Maxwell," she grumbled, "but I'm hungry now. And as your hostage, you are responsible for feeding me."

I made a face and reached for a third soda. The hunger pains were suddenly so overpowering... But it was nothing I couldn't handle. I had lived for nearly ten years with this feeling visiting every minute of every day. It was back on L-2, when there was no food to eat.

Solo and I, back when he was alive, used to pick through garbage looking for things to feed us and our gang. We used to do some stupid stuff for food, back then... work for it, sleep for it... fight for it, even... and...

"The bakery attack..."

"What? Maxwell, what are you mumbling about?" Unn asked grouchily.

And so begins the morning I will tell my children and grandkids.

"I once attacked a bakery. A long time ago, before I was a Gundam pilot. It wasn't big or famous or special. But it had nice bread."

"Why'd you attack that one, then, if it wasn't special? Was it Federation?"

"Yeah... but we didn't know that until they blew the place up. Besides, we just wanted some bread..."

"Who's we?" Unn asked. She was leaning forward on her elbows, interested in the story. So I told her.

"My friend and I. I was about six years old. Back on L-2, there wasn't much to go around... so there was never that much food. I regret a lot of stuff we did to get our hands on something edible... don't regret the bakery attack, though..."

Unn looked at me intently. "I don't get it. Why didn't you take the money instead of bread? Then you could have bought food... and other things..."

"We were hungry... that's all we cared about." I insisted. "We weren't robbers..."

"Well, was it a success?"

"In a way, I guess." I chug half a can of soda down. "We got what we wanted. Thing is, we didn't take the bread. The owner gave it to us."

"For free?" She looked so confused... I laughed as she struggled to understand.

"Nope. Not exactly, anyway." I spun the last can towards her and she caught it easily. "The owner caught us as we were stuffing loaves into our shirts. He told us that if we stayed and talked to him for an hour, he would give us all the bread we wanted. Lonely old man, guess it was a good thing those Feds blew up the town... put him out of his misery." I shook my head. "So me 'n' Solo, we sat around for an hour and talked to the old geezer. He gave us all the bread and cake we wanted. Crackers, cookies, we took all the food he had and he smiled, held the door open for us and thanked us for talking with him.

"It's funny really. We had agreed that we weren't going to rip the old guy off, just steal the bread and get. We didn't rip him off, but we got the bread and didn't havta steal it." Good Lord, I was so hungry...

"And that was it? There weren't any problems with it?"

"Ye-ap. We ate good for a day or two, there were about twenty of us, mind you, livin' down an alley. That was all there was to it. No cops, no killings..." 'Course there were consequences, everything has its consequences, but when I ever tell 'em to Unn (or anyone else for that matter), snowballs are going to be livin' the viva-loca down in Hell.

For awhile, Unn said nothing, just sipped her soda. She probably knew I wasn't telling the whole story, but she didn't press and instead said, "Let's do it."

"What!" I blinked.

"Let's do it. Attack a bakery. I'm fuckin' hungry Maxwell,"

"Um... okay..."

We got into the car Heero had borrowed from some dealership three borders over. It was odd, I was driving and freaking out about random things (if Wufei and Heero woke up and we weren't there, if the cops caught us, if Unn escaped) and Unn was calmly looking out the window. We both had on ski-masks, hair up in hats with thick jackets on. I had a shotgun in the backseat.

Only twice did we see squad cars as we drove around town in the darkened streets, looking for a bakery. As Unn looked around for the shop, completely oblivious to the fact that there were cops, the shotgun shells rustled in her coat pocket. The cops didn't stop us or anything, never gave us a second-thought, and I was about to turn the car around and go back to the safe-house when Unn suddenly stopped me.

"There, pull in there, Maxwell,"

I slipped into the abandoned parking lot. Unn drew out a roll of electrical tape and stepped out of the car. I followed her hurriedly, and noticed she was only taping up the numbers on the licence plates. I pulled out the shotgun, leaving the keys in the ignition, and closed the unlocked driver door. We pulled on gloves and lowered the ski masks over our faces.

"Where?" I asked as she walked down the street. "I didn't see a bakery, Unn-babe,"

"Sometimes you have to compromise, Maxwell," she replied. I said nothing as she led us up the sidewalk in front of a McDonalds. "Now, just let me handle it all, okay? You just shove the gun in their faces and demand that they all gather together, okay?"

"Unn-babe, you know I can't do that,"

"No one will know it's us, I promise."

"Do we really have to do this?" I whispered harshly as she opened the door.

"Yes," she replied, "I'm fucking hungry, Maxwell, now shut up." She went right up to the counter where a girl wearing a McDonalds shirt smiled at us.

"Hello and welcome to..." She trailed off as she caught sight of the masks and shotgun. I swung the shotgun around towards the customers, but there were none at all, so I pointed it at the clerk again as Unn calmly told her what we wanted.

"Thirty Big Macs. For take-out."

"Huh?" asked the girl, surprised at the number.

"Thirty Big Macs. For take-out. Now." Unn repeated slowly.

"Better do as she says," I advised. She nodded and stood slowly from her stool.

She called for the manager and the other worker, both guys, and they stared at us for a few moments before starting up the grill. They managed to make all thirty burgers in a few minutes, passing the pieces along between themselves as each did a certain part of making the sandwiches.

I leaned against the counter, propping up the shotgun, and I lazily scratched my nose. It always got itchy when I was bored. Unn followed suit and crossed her arms over the soda fountain that was set up on the countertop.

The three workers kept glancing back at us, staring at the shotgun, and just for fun, I wobbled it a bit. It wouldn't go off, the safety was on, but I wasn't going to tell them that, and pretty soon there were thirty Big Macs in bags.

As the girl counted the burgers to make sure of the number, she asked, "Why don't you just take the money?"

I replied with, "The bakery wasn't open." The girl blinked and passed Unn a bag with fifteen burgers in it.

"What do you mean?"

"If there was a bakery open, we would have gone there instead," I answered, lifting the shotgun up off the counter so I could step back.

Unn nodded. "We're just stealing bread. Nothing else." She ordered two large Cokes and the manager gave them to her shakily as I slung a bag of burgers over one arm. Unn pulled out some dollar bills and gave it the confused girl. "Like I said, we're just stealing bread."

"Thanks!" I called, backing out of the door with Unn. We went back over to that parking lot and threw the gun and burgers in the back. I drove back to the safe-house and we managed to sneak into the kitchen without waking Wufei and Heero.

Unn went back out and pulled the tape off the plates on the car, me watching the entire time, and we sat there at the kitchen table, joking around quietly with the handcuffs done as we ate.

We decided to leave Wufei and Heero each five burgers, so we stuck those in the fridge and finished our Coke before going back to bed.

Unn laid her head on my shoulder as I reached out to flip off the desk lamp on the night-stand. "Still think we didn't have to that?"

I sighed, blowing air out of my nose as I adjusted the sheets. "Well, I'm not hungry anymore, you?"

"Nope." There was a long pause, then, "Good job, Maxwell,"

"With what?" I asked sleepily.

"I don't think I'll ever forget this... so exciting... His Excellency will have a hard time believing me..." She fell asleep leaning on me, so I grinned in the dark and closed my eyes, wondering what Heero'd say if I ever told him.

owari

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A/N: I don't own Gundam Wing, and as much I would love to pull a manga-ka (manga writer) attack and walk up to Hajime and Tomino and force them to give me the characters... well... it ain't happening... Lucky stiffs... 


End file.
